She glared the way only a woman can. “You’re gonna piss me off.”
He rolled his eyes and took a cookie for himself. “I can’t help it. It’s Christmas… and you’re gorgeous.”
She looked at Marty. “Will you please remind him that I’m gay? He seems to have forgotten.”
Marty grinned. “It is Christmas. ”
“So fucking what? That’s doesn’t mean I’m—” Ulrich walked up and she stopped talking.
“See you a minute, Marty? I’ve got another question about those crater photos.”
“Sure.” Marty got up and followed him into the other room.
Emory made sure no one was paying attention to them, then said to Sullivan, “What’s with you lately? You’re getting all… sappy.”
“I’m in love with you.”
She gaped at him, unable to believe he had actually said the words.
“Or didn’t you know that?”
She took another bite of cookie and turned around. “John, you’re gonna ruin this.”
“I don’t want to ruin anything,” he said. “I just want you to know how I feel… that’s all.”
She looked at him. “Then tell me so we can get it behind us.”
“I love you and I want you to keep the baby so we can raise it together.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away again. “You know that’s impossible.”
“Yes, I do,” he said quietly, touching her hair with affection. “But I wanted you to know my mind.”
She put her hand on his leg, said, “Thank you,” then got up and left the room.
Forty-Seven
Forrest had given the men the night off, but even he was asleep in Launch Control with his head on his arms when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He sat up and opened his eyes to see Andie, Joann, and Maria two.
“I said you could bring a friend,” he remarked with a tired chuckle, noting the tentative look on Andie’s face. “What I am in trouble for now?”
Andie looked at the other two. Then Maria two turned and looked at Joann.
“Okay, I guess it’s me,” Joann said. “So… Jack… we have a little bit of a problem.”
“What sort of a problem?” he asked, reaching for his cigarettes. “I think Christmas went pretty well, don’t you?”
“It’s got nothing to do with Christmas. It has to do with the fact you cut us off… or rather you told Oscar to. We had a perfectly good thing going with him until you butted in. Now we’re climbing the goddamn walls down here, and it’s not fair. It wasn’t any of your business.”
This took Forrest by surprise, and he glanced at Andie, who leaned back against the door.
“Andie’s here because she’s got a separate issue,” Joann said.
“Oh? Why isn’t Renee in here too?”
Joann and Maria two looked at each other, obviously confused by the question.
“So you guys didn’t know about her,” he said, sitting forward and lighting up. “Look, ladies, I wasn’t making a moral judgment, and normally this kind of thing wouldn’t be any of my business, but Oscar was exercising piss-poor judgment. The last thing I need down here is a civil war… married women against the single ones. See what I’m saying?”
“And you thought cutting us off was the way to avoid that?”
Now Forrest saw what Vasquez had meant when he had said, Suppose they don’t agree? It seemed not even an apocalypse could prevent romantic intrigue. “I’m not exactly sure I know how to respond to that, Joann. Are you saying you have an unalienable right to another woman’s husband just because the world has ended?”
Joann looked at Maria two for help.
Maria two said, “We’re saying we have needs like anybody else, Jack… and Maria takes sleeping pills every night, so she sleeps like a log. That’s what we’re saying.”
“Sometimes you have to make concessions,” Joann added, crossing her long arms. “For the sake of keeping the peace.”
“It’s a small thing,” Maria two went on. “We’re very careful and Maria isn’t going to find out.”
“Turns out you’re not so careful, actually,” he said testily, unable to believe he was having such a conversation with two women in the midst of such circumstances. “But let’s get past that for a second… you’re not ashamed of yourselves at all? You don’t feel… bad?”
“A man wouldn’t be ashamed,” Joann persisted. “Would you be a bit surprised by this if we were men? I don’t think so.”
Forrest looked each woman in the eyes. “You’re naive to think nobody will tell Maria… and when they do, I’ll have a huge brushfire to put out down here.”
Andie finally spoke up. “Nobody’s going to tell her, Jack. It’s terrible to say, but the wife is always the last to find out when she’s being cheated on… none of the other married women will want to risk their own husbands taking Oscar’s place.”
“So you’re telling me,” Forrest said, not quite exasperated, “that you ladies can’t maintain any more self-control than this? With an entire planet dying above you, you can’t be satisfied that your children are safe and that you’ve got food to eat.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Joann rejoined, “getting laid four times a week!”
He straightened up in the chair, self-conscious that they knew the exact number.
“You don’t think we pay attention?” Joann went on. “You think everybody’s happy as pigs in shit down here because nobody fights? Nobody fights because we found a balance… that is until you came along and fucked it up.”
He sat forward and crushed out the cigarette in the brass cannon shell, exhaling a stream of smoke, feeling disappointed in them. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Lift the embargo,” Joann said. “Turn a blind eye. Let Oscar have some fun before he runs out of insulin… trust us.”
Forrest eyed Andie. “And you?”
She shrugged. “You know what I want.”
“So this is an ultimatum,” he said. “Either I acquiesce… or you start letting your tempers fly down here. Is that about right?”
“It won’t be out of spite,” Maria two said in earnest. “We’re only human. It may not sound like it, Jack, but we’re asking for your help.”
“All you need to do is stay out of it,” Joann said, trying to make it all sound so simple.
Andie finally stepped away from the door. “You can’t control every single thing that happens down here, Jack. The tighter you squeeze, the more things will slip through your fingers.”
Forrest understood this concept as one of the primary principles of command, but he had never been in charge of a group of women before, nor had he envisioned what seemed to him such an unlikely scenario. “Fine,” he said at length. “But you girls had better go out of your way to make sure Maria never finds out, and you’d damn well better be there for her when Oscar dies. Understood?” He was applying his military bearing now, and he was glad to see that they were responding in the appropriate manner, both of them straightening up under his gaze and nodding their compliance. “And I will expect to hear all of the appropriate mea culpas in the event that you’re caught.”
Both women looked at the floor, nodding once more.
“Very well, ladies. Good night.”
They thanked him quietly and left him alone with Andie.
“Okay,” he said to her, “so what am I supposed to do for you now? Take my pants off?”
Andie’s eyes flooded with tears and she turned for the door.
Forrest got up and caught her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “That was uncalled for.”